"Panic In The Sky: Southwest Airlines Cancels More Than 3,000 Flights As Disruptions Increase"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic In The Sky: Southwest Airlines Cancels 

More Than 3,000 Flights As Disruptions Increase"

by Epic Economist

"The US is suffering from a massive labor shortage and the situation is rapidly evolving into a major national crisis as more and more workers are either leaving or being fired from their jobs for not complying with President Biden's vaccination mandate. The federal government's response to the health crisis has certainly caused deep divisions in our society, and now the mandates are threatening to trigger widespread disruptions in our economy. One of the latest interruptions happened in Florida over the weekend and is still unfolding as we speak. Southwest airlines' pilots and air traffic controllers seemingly engaged in a sickout to protest against the vaccine mandate, prompting mass flight cancellations and leaving airports in total chaos.

Between Saturday and Sunday, nearly 2,000 flights were suddenly canceled, but the company cited weather problems as the reason for doing so. However, no other airlines in the area reported being affected by weather problems, which then started to raise suspicions that something else was going on behind the scenes. On October 4, Southwest CEO Gary Kelly announced that Southwest Airlines would join their industry peers in complying with the federal government’s vaccination directive, and explained that the company works as a federal contractor and needs to comply with the President's vaccine mandate for federal employees and contractors. As a consequence, Southwest’s pilot union, the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, filed a lawsuit against the company and is seeking a court injunction against the mandate.

On Sunday morning, exceedingly long lines could be seen at Southwest’s ticket counter in the Tampa airport, according to local media. One passenger named B.J. Romero told Fox News: "I have two kids. I have appointments. I have work. I can’t miss work. I have people relying on me, so I have to be home. That’s not going to work for me.” When asked about Southwest’s claim that bad weather caused mass cancelations, Romero balked at the suggestion. “That sounds like baloney to me,” he said. “The weather is fine in all connecting areas, there’s no bad weather.” Weirdly enough, no other major airlines had been affected by the same issues, that's why discussions that Southwest airlines' employees had staged coordinated walk-outs intensified.

On Monday, the company was one more time at the top of the cancellation list. According to FlightAware data, almost 30% of Southwest airlines' flights were canceled that day, which led Senator Ron Johnson to tweet: "As a loyal Southwest customer who has been flying safely throughout the [past year] and is utterly opposed to vaccine mandates, I’m asking, stop the madness before more damage is done."

As the airline recently imposed a December 8 deadline for vaccinations, the Pilots Union protested the measure and said that it forces "new conditions of employment and threatens termination". What was a minor temporary event for other carriers devastated Southwest Airlines because our operation has become brittle and subject to massive failures under the slightest pressure," said Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. "Our pilots are tired and frustrated because our operation is running on empty due to a lack of support from the company."

The situation now unfolding in our airports is also happening in pretty much every industry in America. In fact, the worker shortage plaguing our airlines is just a fraction of the overall picture. Nationwide, we're facing the most devastating labor shortage ever recorded. Our supply chains are falling apart due to the lack of personnel. Hospitals, schools, grocery shops - you name it, they're all incredibly short-staffed, and we just started to see the effects of these mandates. As workers are forced out of their jobs, more and more sectors become overwhelmed and our economy starts to slide back into recession again.

If millions of qualified workers are pushed out of their posts because of the mandate in the weeks and months ahead, we can expect unprecedented chaos all across the country. A weekend of canceled flights can be very inconvenient, but it is nothing compared to the complete and utter nightmare our society will be facing if workers start to walk away from their jobs en masse. Of course, it isn’t just the airline sector that is crumbling. Our entire economic infrastructure is falling to pieces, and experts are warning that things will continue to break down in the coming months."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" ( 2010 )

Full screen recommended.

Ludovico Einaudi, "The Royal Albert Hall Concert" ( 2010 )

"A Look to the Heavens"

"NGC 6888, also known as the Crescent Nebula, is a about 25 light-years across blown by winds from its central, bright, massive star. A triumvirate of astroimagers ( Joe, Glenn, Russell) created this sharp portrait of the cosmic bubble. Their telescopic collaboration collected over 30 hours of narrow band image data isolating light from hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The oxygen atoms produce the blue-green hue that seems to enshroud the detailed folds and filaments. Visible within the nebula, NGC 6888's central star is classified as a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 136). The star is shedding its outer envelope in a strong stellar wind, ejecting the equivalent of the Sun's mass every 10,000 years. 

The nebula's complex structures are likely the result of this strong wind interacting with material ejected in an earlier phase. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate and near the end of its stellar life this star should ultimately go out with a bang in a spectacular supernova explosion. Found in the nebula rich constellation Cygnus, NGC 6888 is about 5,000 light-years away."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210617.html

don Miguel Ruiz, “Don’t Take Anything Personally”

“Don’t Take Anything Personally”

by don Miguel Ruiz

“Whatever happens around you, don’t take it personally. Using an earlier example, if I see you on the street and I say, “Hey, you are so stupid,” without knowing you, it’s not about you; it’s about me. If you take it personally, perhaps you believe you are stupid. Maybe you think to yourself, “How does he know?  Is he clairvoyant, or can everybody see how stupid I am?”

You take it personally because you agree with whatever was said. As soon as you agree, the poison goes through you, and you are trapped in the dream of hell. What causes you to be trapped is what we call personal importance. Personal importance, or taking things personally, is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about “me.” During the period of our education, or our domestication, we learn to take everything personally. We think we are responsible for everything. Me, me, me, always me!

Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication.

If someone gives you an opinion and says, “Hey, you look so fat,” don’t take it personally, because the truth is that this person is dealing with his or her own feelings, beliefs, and opinions. That person tried to send poison to you and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours. Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators, the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want, and because you take it personally, you eat it up.

You eat all their emotional garbage, and now it becomes your garbage. But if you do not take it personally, you are immune in the middle of hell. Immunity to poison in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement.

When you take things personally, then you feel offended, and your reaction is to defend your beliefs and create conflicts. You make something big out of something so little, because you have the need to be right and make everybody else wrong. You also try hard to be right by giving them your own opinions. In the same way, whatever you feel and do is just a projection of your own personal dream, a reflection of your own agreements. What you say, what you do and the opinions you have are according to the agreements you have made- and these opinions have nothing to do with me.

It is not important to me what you think about me, and I don’t take what you think personally. I don’t take it personally when people say, “Miguel, you are the best,” and I also don’t take it personally when they say, “Miguel, you are the worst.” I know that when you are happy you will tell me, “Miguel, you are such an angel!” But, when you are mad at me you will say, “Oh, Miguel, you are such a devil! You are so disgusting. How can you say those things?” Either way, it does not affect me because I know what I am. I don’t have the need to be accepted. I don’t have the need to have someone tell me, “Miguel, you are doing so good!” or “How dare you do that!”

No, I don’t take it personally. Whatever you think, whatever you feel, I know is your problem and not my problem. It is the way you see the world. It is nothing personal, because you are dealing with yourself, not with me. Others are going to have their own opinion according to their belief system, so nothing they think about me is really about me, but it is about them.

You may even tell me, “Miguel, what you are saying is hurting me.” But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way that I can take this personally. Not because I don’t believe in you or don’t trust you, but because I know that you see the world with different eyes, with your eyes. You create an entire picture or movie in your mind, and in that picture you are the director, you are the producer, you are the main actor or actress. Everyone else is a secondary actor or actress. It is your movie.

The way that you see that movie is according to the agreements you have made with life. Your point of view is something personal to you. It is no one’s truth but yours. Then, if you get mad at me, I know you are dealing with yourself. I am the excuse for you to get mad. And you get mad because you are afraid, because you are dealing with fear. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will get mad at me. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will hate me. If you are not afraid, there is no way you will be jealous or sad.

If you live without fear, if you love, there is no place for any of these emotions. If you don’t feel any of those emotions, it is logical that you will feel good. When you feel good, everything around you is good. When everything around you is good, everything makes you happy. You are loving everything that is around you, because you are loving yourself. Because you like the way you are. Because you are content with you. Because you are happy with your life. You are happy with the movie you are producing, happy with your agreements with life. You are at peace, and you are happy. You live in that state of bliss where everything is so wonderful, and everything is so beautiful. In that state of bliss you are making love all the time with everything that you perceive.”

- http://www.livinglifefully.com/

"I Can'tConvince Myself..."

“I can’t convince myself that it does much good to try to challenge the everyday political delusions and dementias of Americans at large. Their contained and confined mentalities by far prefer the petty and parochial prisons of the kind of sense they have been trained and rewarded for making out of their lives (and are punished for deviating from them). What it costs them ultimately to be such slaves and infants and ideological zombies is a thought too monstrous and rending and spiky for them even to want to glance at.”

- Kenneth Smith

“If you want to tell people the truth,

 make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”

- Oscar Wilde

"On the Sapient Regulation of Brats, Termagants, Races Half Devil and Half Child, and Other Such Curiosities as Afflict the Polity"

"On the Sapient Regulation of Brats, Termagants, Races Half 

Devil and Half Child, and Other Such Curiosities as Afflict the Polity"

by Fred Reed

"To start with “trans” people. What I think is, when I read about trans people, always hollering about their rights and sufferings, and how the world isn’t exactly the way they think it should be, is that someone should tell them to sit down and shut up. They have come to be nuisances. Additionally, they are ridiculous. I am not interested in their trivial problems. I wish them no harm, just wish they would put their right clothes on.

I hear that Bruce Jenner thinks he is a girl and wants to be governor of California. All right, I think I am a long-haired Schnauzer and want to be CEO of Microsoft. How is that going to work? I want to say, see, Bruce, wanting to be something and actually being it don’t always go together. Now, Bruce, I have some experience of girls, though not as much as I hoped for and, buddy, you just ain’t one. There just ain’t enough silicone.

Another weariness under which I suffer is poofters. Yes, they are harmless, usually bright and productive, often talented. I don’t want to do anything to them. May they flourish. For all I care, they can litter the earth with gay bars, like McDonald’s or Office Depot. I just don’t want to hear about them, or their problems. I have my own.

Nor do I have anything against Lesbians. They too have been around forever and don’t seem to have ruined the earth or anything. There were probably Lesbian trilobites, and dinosaurs too. Judging by some modern ones, there may be an evolutionary connection. I am just not interested in them. I wish they would just quiet down, and do whatever they do - each other, I think - quietly.

Further, college students and their moronic pieties. I am homicidally tired of moralisms from self-absorbed brats apparently in need of diapering. When a yearning world forces dictatorship on me, I will impose the death penalty on anyone who says “heteronormative.” There is too much noise from abnormatives, hetero or otherwise. Further, I will put a bounty on anyone who says “marginalized communities.” No bag limit. I figure marginalized communities need to be more marginalized, at least out of hearing distance.

I concede my ideas may not be up to date. I read about SJWs pulling down statues, and I thought it meant Single Jewish Woman, because that’s what it used to mean on dating sites. I wondered why they were toppling statues. Did they think they could get dates that way? Well, it seems SJW means Social Justice Warrior, which means a Gender Studies major with a dimly lit mind and the culture of a retarded twelfth-century night-soil collector.

When these earnest terrestrial tugboats are hauling away on a statue, they should be asked what the statue did. OK, probably nothing, but I mean who the statue is of. If they don’t know they should get a free vasectomy or Norplant or something.

On a British channel I saw a reporter ask a girl who was busily pulling on a statue of Churchill what she thought of him. She didn’t know, she said, she had never met him. The brains of a box turtle. We have come to this.

Now we come to affirmative action, which is the idea that you should get a job because you can’t do it. This is very woke and progressive, and probably inclusive. It is good for the economy, because anyone can find a job he can’t do, so he can get hired. As I understand it, the more you can’t do it, the more you ought to get hired. For example, I can’t do brain surgery, and I can’t be point guard for the Lakers. So I should get both jobs.

Now, racists and other realists say that affirmative action is for losers, that if you are good enough you don’t need it, and that if you need it you aren’t good enough. and if you get it anyway, you are a miserable parasite and ought to be flogged. This line of thought is quite shocking and reprehensible. But it would work like gangbusters.

Actually, I am probably overqualified as point guard as I am old, half-blind, and with a lousy jump shot. If I were actually dead, I would be a shoo-in. I would be the first Schnauzer on the Lakers. Koom bah yah, and all.

The reader should not think I am against affirmative action just because it is lunatic and bat-brained. Many things are, such as lunatics and bats. I just think we need a more inclusive and democratic affirmative action. Everybody should be eligible. If everybody got it, then racist conservatives couldn’t complain that it was racist, as otherwise it too obviously is. It is not fair to discriminate against people merely because they have a lower level of incapacity than others.

I can see other avenues for this enlightened approach. It might be applied to looting or, as it ought to be called, independently authorized acquisition. What I don’t get is, looters say they are looking for social justice, but when they come running out of stores, they usually have a TV or tennis shoes. Now, maybe they just can’t tell tennis shoes from social justice. Anybody can make a mistake.

Next, black activists also might sit down and shut up to the great furtherance of national comity. In fact this is a perfectly splendid idea. Especially about reparations. I have no interest in paying them for something I didn’t do and they have never been done to. (That was almost English.) I think blacks should pay me reparations for atrocities in the Tai Ping Wars in China. I wasn’t there, and blacks didn’t do it, so they owe me reparations. See?

A part of black culture that might use some work under warranty is mass murder. Every year in Chicago blacks kill about seven hundred of each other. I figure this is part of their culture, because if it wasn’t they wouldn’t do it every year. Now, I don’t want to see these people dead, or anybody else. I don’t want to meddle in cultural matters that are not my business. But it just seems to me that they might take up something else, like bowling.

Finally, I am weary unto death of Indigenous Peoples. I wish them no harm. They can be as Indigenous as they like, have all the Indigenicities or Indigenisms and suchlike as suits them. They can dance in circles and have Spiritually Significant Chants to gods they don´t really believe in and beat on logs with sticks and complain about Columbus while talking on smartphones invented by his progeny. Fine. I have no problem if they do it somewhere else.

Unlike the politically virtuous, I am not out to get the Indians. I don’t agree with all the woke who want to take Indigenous names off everything, like the Washington Redskins, and eliminate all traces of Indian past from America. Stone age savages are people too, and no worse than any other savages, such as ourselves.

OK, that’s todays sociological wisdom. Now I’m going to the local biker bar, which is the Iron Horse, for a double Beam and coke and talk about sensible things, like really bad-ass Harleys. A little social consciousness goes a long way."

- https://www.unz.com/author/fred-reed/

Gregory Mannarino, "IMF Warns Again On Surging Inflation And Cratering Global Economic Growth"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/12/21:

"IMF Warns Again On Surging Inflation 

And Cratering Global Economic Growth"

- https://traderschoice.net/

The Daily "Near You?"

Harare, Zimbabwe. Thanks for stopping by!

"Butterflies..."

“I think humans might be like butterflies; people die every day without many other people knowing about them, seeing their colors, hearing their stories… and when humans are broken, they’re like broken butterfly wings; suddenly there are so many beauties that are seen in different ways, so many thoughts and visions and possibilities that form, which couldn’t form when the person wasn’t broken! So it is not a very sad thing to be broken, after all! It’s during the times of being broken, that you have all the opportunities to become things unforgettable! Just like the broken butterfly wing that I found, which has given me so many thoughts, in so many ways, has shown me so many words, and imaginations! But butterflies need to know that it doesn’t matter at all if the whole world saw their colors or not! What matters is that they flew, they glided, they hovered, they saw, they felt, and they knew! And they loved the ones whom they flew with! And that is an existence worthwhile!”

- C. JoyBell C.

Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"

"Oh, the Places You'll Go!"

by Dr. Seuss

"Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You're off to Great Places!

You're off and away!

You have brains in your head.

You have feet in your shoes.

You can steer yourself

any direction you choose.

You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

You'll look up and down streets. Look 'em over with care.

About some you will say, "I don't choose to go there."

With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,

you're too smart to go down any not-so-good street.

And you may not find any

you'll want to go down.

In that case, of course,

you'll head straight out of town.

It's opener there

in the wide open air.

Out there things can happen

and frequently do

to people as brainy

and footsy as you.

And then things start to happen,

don't worry. Don't stew.

Just go right along.

You'll start happening too.

OH!

THE PLACES YOU'LL GO!

You'll be on your way up!

You'll be seeing great sights!

You'll join the high fliers

who soar to high heights.

You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.

You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.

Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.

Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don't.

Because, sometimes, you won't.

I'm sorry to say so

but, sadly, it's true

that Bang-ups

and Hang-ups

can happen to you.

You can get all hung up

in a prickle-ly perch.

And your gang will fly on.

You'll be left in a Lurch.

You'll come down from the Lurch

with an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then,

that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump,

you're not in for much fun.

Un-slumping yourself

is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.

A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right...

or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?

Or go around back and sneak in from behind?

Simple it's not, I'm afraid you will find,

for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused

that you'll start in to race

down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace

and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,

headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place...

...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come, or a plane to go

or the mail to come, or the rain to go

or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow

or the waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite

or waiting for the wind to fly a kite

or waiting around for Friday night

or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake

or a pot to boil, or a Better Break

or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants

or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting.

NO!

That's not for you!

Somehow you'll escape

all that waiting and staying

You'll find the bright places

where Boom Bands are playing.

With banner flip-flapping,

once more you'll ride high!

Ready for anything under the sky.

Ready because you're that kind of a guy!

Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!

There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.

And the magical things you can do with that ball

will make you the winning-est winner of all.

Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be,

with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.

Except when they don't

Because, sometimes they won't.

I'm afraid that some times

you'll play lonely games too.

Games you can't win

'cause you'll play against you.

All Alone!

Whether you like it or not,

Alone will be something

you'll be quite a lot.

And when you're alone, there's a very good chance

you'll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.

There are some, down the road between hither and yon,

that can scare you so much you won't want to go on.

But on you will go

though the weather be foul.

On you will go

though your enemies prowl.

On you will go

though the Hakken-Kraks howl.

Onward up many

a frightening creek,

though your arms may get sore

and your sneakers may leak.

On and on you will hike,

And I know you'll hike far

and face up to your problems

whatever they are.

You'll get mixed up, of course,

as you already know.

You'll get mixed up

with many strange birds as you go.

So be sure when you step.

Step with care and great tact

and remember that Life's

a Great Balancing Act.

Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.

And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)

KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!

So...

be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray

or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,

You're off the Great Places!

Today is your day!

Your mountain is waiting.

So...get on your way!"

“Be Unshakeable”

Full screen recommended.

RedFrost Motivation, “Be Unshakeable”

Powerful wisdom from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus

Read by Chris Lines

"How It Really Is"

 

"America's Bottom 50% Have Nowhere To Go But Down"

"America's Bottom 50% Have Nowhere To Go But Down"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"One might anticipate that the bottom 50%'s meager share of the nation's exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no. America's economy has changed in ways few of the winners seem to notice, as they're too busy cheerleading their own brilliance and success. In the view of the winners, who just so happen to occupy all the seats at the media-punditry-Federal Reserve, etc. table - the rising tide of stock, bond and real estate bubbles are raising all boats. What's left unsaid is except for the 50% of boats with gaping holes below the waterline, i.e. stagnant wages and a fast-rising cost of living.

The truth the self-satisfied winners don't include in their self-congratulatory rah-rah is there's no place for the bottom 50% of American households to go but down. All the winnings flow to those who already owned assets back when they were affordable - the already-wealthy -whose wealth has soared as assets have shot to the moon while the the burdens of inflation and debt service hit the bottom 50% the hardest.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is whining that inflation isn't high enough yet for their refined tastes. Boo-hoo, how sad for the Fed - inflation isn't yet high enough. Oh wait - didn't they each mint millions by front-running their own policies? No wonder they're not worried about inflation.

The reality few acknowledge is that globalization and financialization have stripped the American economy of low-skilled jobs that don't demand much of the employee. The reality is that a great many people don't have what it takes to learn high-level skills and work at a demanding pace under constant pressure - the description of the average job in America.

There were once millions of low-skill, low-pay jobs for people who for whatever mix of reasons were unable to muster the wherewithal to fulfill the fantasy of working extra hard, going to night school, soaking up high-level skills, moving quickly up the ladder to higher pay, buying the starter home and then moving up the food chain to middle class security from there.

The cost of living was low enough that those working these low-skill, low-pay jobs could still have an independent life. There were still low-cost rentals, often derided by the wealthy, in nooks and crannies of even the costliest cities. (I once lived in a room stuffed with old tax records in a poolside shack in an upscale neighborhood. The room had been cleared for a single bed and a path to the decrepit bathroom. Its most important attribute was that I could afford it on my low earnings.)

Affordable housing has vanished, eliminated by the financialization of America's economy. Once landlords pay double the price for the property, rents have to double to pay their higher expenses. The apartment didn't double in size or amenities - the rent doubled without any increase in utility to the renter. You get nothing more for double the price - nice.

Yes, people could make better choices, and some do. The point here is the game is rigged against those in the lower tier of the economy who can no longer afford a house or other stake in the only winning game in town--speculative asset bubbles. Go ahead and work a second job and go to night school - you'll still be left behind the already-rich.

Globalization opened every job in America to global competition via offshoring or the influx of undocumented workers so desperate to support their families back home that no pay was too low and no working condition too wretched to refuse.

Many overindulged pundits who never worked an honest day in their lives sneer about burger flippers without realizing how hard those burger flippers have to work. I doubt the well-dressed pundits, snobbish about their university degrees and general brilliance, could manage to work a single day in a demanding fast-food job.

As the price of housing and other assets have soared, enriching the already rich, they're out of reach for the bottom 50% who struggle to pay their bills as wages have stagnated and the costs of essentials have skyrocketed. The rising cost of parking tickets, junk fees, user fees, utilities and food don't impact the well-paid top 5% technocrat class, whose stake in the Everything Bubble keeps expanding by tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. But for the bottom 50%, those incremental increases are, when added to higher rents, absolutely crushing.

As for getting high-quality healthcare that includes mental health support - those are reserved for the rich. But no worries, self-medication is always a "choice." Getting a boost in pay from $12 an hour to $15 an hour is welcome, but that doesn't put the worker any closer to affording a house or equivalent stake in the Everything Bubble.

The new feudalism is masked by the glossy SillyCon Valley PR of a gig economy where (per the PR fantasy) bright, shiny and totally independent workers freely choose to serve the winners in the rigged sweepstakes for low pay and zero benefits.

In the SillyCon Valley PR, serfs freely choose to serve their noble masters for nothing but survival because they love the "freedom" and "choice" of kissing the nobility's plump derrieres. (After all, there were "choices" even back in the good old days of feudalism - one could join the brigands in the forest, or enlist in a poorly paid mercenary army where the odds of dying were high - you know, "choices" of "gigs.")

One might anticipate that the bottom 50%'s meager share of the nation's exploding wealth would have increased as smartly as the wealth of the billionaires, but alas, no - the bottom 50%'s share of stocks (equities) actually plummeted in the the glorious decades of Federal Reserve free money for financiers, stock buy-backs and asset bubbles.

All this suits the billionaires and those collecting the crumbs of the Everything Bubble just fine. So what if the bottom 50% have nowhere to go but down? There's plenty of room in the homeless encampment for another broken down station wagon or an old camper. There's lots of "choices." And no consequences for the winners, of course, because The Fed has our backs."

Click images for larger sizes.

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"Shadow Inflation is Affecting Everyone - This Will Not Stop"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 10/12/21:

"Shadow Inflation is Affecting Everyone - This Will Not Stop"

"There are goods and services that we are shorted on each and every day. This is called Shadow Inflation. You are purchasing products and services and getting short changed as you pay for more and businesses give us less."

Gregory Mannarino, "Risk In The Market IS Increasing, However, Watch The Flow Of Credit And Debt"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 10/12/21:

"Risk In The Market IS Increasing, 

However, Watch The Flow Of Credit And Debt"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"COVID-19: The Weaponization Of Fear & The Loss Of Freedom"

"COVID-19: The Weaponization Of Fear 

& The Loss Of Freedom"

by John MacGhlionn

"Many U.S. citizens wonder if life will ever return to normal. Are masks here to stay? On TV, news channels are busy spreading fear. Meanwhile, some of the most widely read publications in the United States are warning about the next phase of the pandemic.

To live in the United States is to live in a permanent state of fear. This, as many readers know, is by design. A more fearful nation is a more passive one - easier to manipulate and easier to control.

In the United States, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, it’s far “too soon” to tell if Christmas gatherings will be allowed. Considering Christmas is more than two months away, one is forgiven for raising their eyebrows and asking: “What are you talking about, Dr. Fauci?” What is the point of vaccines and booster shots if we cannot be with our loved ones? Haven’t we sacrificed enough over the past 18 to 20 months?

Today, across the country, fear dominates the narrative. As someone currently completing a doctorate in psychology, I am intimately familiar with the mechanics of emotional salience. As a key attentional mechanism that contributes to our survival, fear is currently being weaponized for nefarious purposes.

When it comes to the mechanics of government-induced fear, the economist Robert Higgs is perhaps the most knowledgeable man in America. After reading a fantastic article by City Journal’s John Tierney, I picked up a copy of “Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government,” a book written by Robert Higgs, an economic historian who has been warning about the dangers of government creep for more than 30 years. In “Crisis and Leviathan,” published back in 1987, Higgs discussed a phenomenon known as the “ratchet effect.” Just like a tradesman uses a ratchet to allow effective, one-directional motion, governments often use emergencies to “ratchet” up their responses. By introducing more programs and more oversight boards, such “ratcheting” comes with significant costs - including freedoms we once took for granted. The loss of freedom brings a loss of privacy, and with these losses comes a loss of what it means to be human.

Clearly inspired by Higgs, the U.S. government, aided by mainstream media outlets, has weaponized fear to full effect. Aided by behavioral experts and masters of spin, a number of highly influential people have exploited this deeply wired reaction to further erode human agency. Now, to be clear, fear is a highly complex emotion. Context is everything. If you find yourself being chased by a bear, fear is natural. To feel joy in that situation would likely result in your swift and all too painful demise. However, in modern society, our predisposition toward fear is largely maladaptive. Your chances of being chased by a bear are minimal. In fact, your chances of dying from unnatural causes have never been lower. 

The world has never been safer. With COVID-19, though, we are constantly fed the life or death narrative. The message from the government and MSM is clear: “If you enjoy living, then listen to those in power. If instead you enjoy dying, then, by all means, do your own thing.” Don Lemon, CNN’s anchor and part-time preacher, has spoken about leaving the unvaccinated behind. Again, to be clear, I am not advocating against vaccines, but every adult should be free to make their own decisions. They shouldn’t be coerced or fed false, fear-filled narratives.

A Culture of Fear: We are bombarded with news stories 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - many of these are of the tragic variety. Not surprisingly, as we are hardwired to sense danger, the human mind provides fertile ground for the planting of fears. However, fears, like plants, can also be uprooted. Sadly, our ability to uproot is being compromised by those in positions of genuine power. Because of this, to paraphrase James F. Byrnes, the now deceased politician and judge, too many people now find themselves obsessed by the idea of security. By failing to acknowledge opportunity (also known as freedom), “they seem to be more afraid of life than death.”

Fear works best when an element of truth gets exaggerated to epic proportions. With COVID-19, we know the virus exists; we also know that far too many people around the world, including at least 709,000 Americans, have died. But - and this is of vital importance - if you happen to be reasonably young and reasonably healthy, your chances of dying from the virus are minimal. One of the major reasons COVID-19 has had such a devastating impact in the United States has a lot to do with one, simple fact: 40 percent of the country’s adults are obese. Instead of fear mongering, Dr. Fauci should be advising people to get fitter. This is one of the surest ways to avoid succumbing to the illness. Why does this get excluded from the conversation, either intentionally or otherwise? Because it’s much better to keep control of the masses - including the younger, healthier citizens - if tens of millions live in a perpetual state of fear.

An individual has a far greater chance of being killed in a traffic accident or from the flu than they have of dying from COVID-19. Obviously, no one wants to get the flu or experience a traffic accident. Nevertheless, we don’t live our lives in constant fear of both. That’s because our salience biases, also known as perceptual salience, predispose us to focus on novel threats. What’s more novel than a novel coronavirus? Fear is a prison largely of our own making. Let’s free ourselves.

I will finish with a quote from Frank Herbert, author of “Dune”: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Musical Interlude: Sting, "Fields Of Gold"

Sting, "Fields Of Gold"

"A Look to the Heavens"

Full screen recommended.

Juno Flyby of Ganymede and Jupiter

"What would it be like to fly over the largest moon in the Solar System? In June, the robotic Juno spacecraft flew past Jupiter's huge moon Ganymede and took images that have been digitally constructed into a detailed flyby. As the featured video begins, Juno swoops over the two-toned surface of the 2,000-km wide moon, revealing an icy alien landscape filled with grooves and craters. The grooves are likely caused by shifting surface plates, while the craters are caused by violent impacts. Continuing on in its orbit, Juno then performed its 34th close pass over Jupiter's clouds. The digitally-constructed video shows numerous swirling clouds in the north, colorful planet-circling zones and bands across the middle - featuring several white-oval clouds from the String of Pearls, and finally more swirling clouds in the south. Next September, Juno is scheduled to make a close pass over another of Jupiter's large moons: Europa."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

"The Hand We're Dealt..."

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.”

- Mia Sheridan

"Grim Reaper Gonna Reap; Airline Chaos; Income Shortage; Food Companies Sold Out"

Jeremiah Babe, PM 10/11/21:

"Grim Reaper Gonna Reap; Airline Chaos; 

Income Shortage; Food Companies Sold Out"

"Panic At Sea: Over 100,000 Sailors Stuck On Abandoned Cargo Ships Without Pay Or Food"

Full screen recommended.

"Panic At Sea: Over 100,000 Sailors Stuck On 

Abandoned Cargo Ships Without Pay Or Food"

by Epic Economist

"Our supply chains are breaking down on a very basic level. While there's a widespread shortage of goods and many products are not arriving where they need to be when they need to be there, a shortage of workers is spreading across every corner of the industry and global leaders are now being warned if conditions do not improve the world's ocean transport system is going to collapse.

Hundreds of thousands of sailors have left their jobs since the onset of the health crisis due to chronic underpayment, lack of assistance, and exceedingly long work hours. To make things worse, many were unable to enter their countries and come back home after having finished their contracts simply because they haven't been vaccinated, in what was known as the crew change crisis.

Now, thousands of sailors are currently stranded at immense cargo ships, living in the worse possible conditions you can imagine. They have been forgotten by their leaders, their country, and their employers. The UN calls it a humanitarian crisis. And according to a new dossier published by the Wall Street Journal, the problem hasn't started over the past year and a half, but almost a decade ago.

The global trade disruptions that erupted as a result of the sanitary outbreak only aggravated the problem. Trillions in government stimulus have contributed to an unprecedented spike in consumer demand, but our stressed supply chains and millions of supply chain workers simply cannot handle the gigantic volume of goods arriving every day anymore. They're reaching their breaking point. However, long before the virus spread all over the planet, shipping companies were already overwhelming these workers whose labor is essential to global trade but whose faces remain invisible.

Over the past decade, an increasing number of carriers have abandoned their own vessels due to mounting debts, including older vessels considered too costly to repair, and that has caused a devastating rise in the number of crewmembers simply being abandoned at sea, often left without resources to survive as they await pay for the work they have done, but most times, it never comes.

In the investigative report, The Wall Street Journal described the shocking reality of thousands of crew members that were left adrift after companies abandoned, sold, or transferred vessels, or simply couldn't pay their debts.

These workers struggle to find food, water, and other essential resources even while moored close to resort locations in places such as Dubai - or in some cases, while stuck at Black Sea ports. "The $14 trillion shipping industry, responsible for 90% of world trade, has left in its wake what appears to be a record number of cargo-ship castaways," the report highlights. "Abandonment cases are counted when shipowners fail to pay crews two or more months in wages or don’t cover the cost to send crew members home, according to the International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency."

The UN revealed that the number of abandoned sailors has doubled in 2020, and it will probably grow once again in 2021 as hundreds of thousands cannot reenter their countries due to the lack of vaccination. The exact number of international crew members that are currently abandoned is still unknown because many of them are still reluctant to come forward for fear of not getting hired by other freight companies. Only last month, the industry labor union, International Transport Workers’ Federation, reported that over 1,000 more sailors were left adrift. But according to the WSJ, the total number of those left aboard container ships and bulk carriers whose transport operations have been halted is in the range of the hundreds of thousands.

Abandoned sailors often describe the ships as a "prison" in which they have been forced to work for years without any compensation. Recently, some of the world’s biggest shipping and transport organizations urged for help from the UN, arguing the supply chain crisis may escalate to a whole new level if governments fail to send aid to sailors and other supply chain workers in time, an act that could lead to the total collapse of the global transport system, they warned. In addition to the devastating impact this crisis is having on the lives of hundreds of thousands of stranded maritime workers, millions of people all over the planet can also be affected by the consequences of this situation as the supply chain crisis intensifies and pushes the price of everything to new record highs. That's why you should start preparing for the turbulence ahead while you still can because the time is almost up."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com​

"A Trillion-dollar Game of Chicken"

"A Trillion-dollar Game of Chicken"

by Jim Rickards

"Most of my readers have followed the ongoing debates in Washington, D.C., about the $1 trillion infrastructure bill and the $3.5 trillion welfare bill now pending in Congress. Here’s a quick recap of the state of play: The infrastructure bill is only about one-third related to real infrastructure such as tunnels, bridges, roads and airports. The rest involves welfare for union workers and pork-barrel projects that do not benefit the public at large. Still, the real infrastructure provisions are popular, and this bill has received bipartisan support. Republicans and Democrats both want to pass the bill so they can run on this accomplishment in the 2022 midterm elections.

As of now, the bill has passed the Senate and has been sent to the House of Representatives. It could be passed easily by the House and become law except that Speaker Nancy Pelosi has decided to hold the bill hostage while she pushes the $3.5 trillion welfare bill. Her goal is to pass both bills at once and send them as a package to President Biden. But the Senate will never pass the welfare bill in its current form.

Stalemate: The Democrats need all 50 Democratic senators to agree on the bill. That would give them a 50-50 tie in the Senate (since none of the 50 Republicans will vote for it), but Vice President Kamala Harris could break the tie, which would give Democrats a win. Two Democratic senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, have said they will not vote for the $3.5 trillion bill. They might vote for something like a $2 trillion bill, but even that is not clear.

Meanwhile, progressive radicals in the House say they will not vote for the infrastructure bill unless the Senate clears the $3.5 trillion welfare bill. And they threaten to vote against the welfare bill if it is presented in the $2 trillion version that’s favored by the Senate.

There you have it. The entire process is in stalemate, and nothing is getting done. The stalemate may be cleared in the weeks ahead with some compromise, but right now it looks like a trillion-dollar game of chicken where no one is ready to blink. With all of this political noise, not many have taken the time to look inside the $3.5 trillion welfare package to see what it would actually provide.

The Most Radical Transformation Since the Great Society: This bill will be the most radical transformation of U.S. society since the Great Society days of the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson or FDR’s New Deal of the 1930s before that.

The Pelosi welfare bill calls for the following: Low-income first-time home buyers would get a free $20,000 down payment with no strings attached. Homeowners would get a $14,000 rebate for installing new home heating and air conditioning systems provided they use union labor. Another $1.48 billion is awarded to union community organizers. Union dues would become tax deductible, a disguised government subsidy. Companies that resist union efforts would see penalties increased 1,000%. The list of welfare and union subsidies goes on.

What does an everyday, hardworking taxpayer get out of this bill? Absolutely nothing. This bill would only put an enormous burden of more regulation, higher taxes and higher costs on the economy. The Biden administration will slow U.S. and global growth with a combination of higher taxes, more regulation and wasteful spending on programs such as the Green New Deal.

“Stimulus”: Biden administration deficit spending, which will approach $6 trillion of new authorizations in fiscal 2021, is continually claimed as stimulus. In fact, there is no stimulus from such spending because the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is now approaching 130%. There is good evidence that debt-to-GDP ratios in excess of 90% produce less growth than the amount of new debt itself. In other words, there is no stimulus and only an increasing debt-to-GDP ratio that makes the situation worse.

Let’s hope the impasse in Washington continues. But don’t count on it. Investors should expect slower growth ahead if this bill becomes law. But the U.S. was facing slower growth in the years ahead with or without the Biden administration’s policies because of high debt and a central bank that does not understand monetary economics.

The New Depression Continues: Now that Biden’s policies are fully revealed and becoming law, it is clear that growth will be even worse than would otherwise be expected. As I’ve explained before, this is characteristic of a new Great Depression. A recession is technically defined as two or more consecutive quarters of declines in GDP. A depression is not technically defined but is understood as a prolonged period of growth that is either below the long-term trend or below potential growth.

We are in a new depression now. Growth declined in 2008. The 2009–2019 recovery averaged annual growth of about 2.2%, well below the long-term trend of 3.5–4.5%. GDP declined again by 3.4% in 2020, the steepest one-year decline since 1946.

The December 2019 level of output was not recovered until July 2021. Annualized growth for the first half of 2021 is 6.4%, but that is slowing quickly. The Atlanta Fed's latest forecast for annualized Q3 growth is 1.3%.

Forget the high growth, reopening and inflation narratives. We're back in the same rut we were in before the pandemic, and it will get worse. This is characteristic of a new Great Depression that can last for many years. Once the inflation narrative fades and the disinflation narrative comes to the fore, we can expect a stock market correction as asset prices adjust to the return of an era of slow growth.

Looking out even further ahead, the effects of the pandemic on the economy will be intergenerational. Most financial panics or recessions are followed by recovery within a year or less. Pandemics produce different patterns.

30 Years to Recover: One study from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in collaboration with outside academics showed that of the 15 highest-fatality pandemics since the Black Death in the mid-1300s, the average time needed to return to normal levels of interest rates, growth and employment is more than 30 years.

In the shorter term, things are about to get worse because of the Fed. The economy’s slowing down and supply disruptions are producing shortages, some of which are serious and will probably get worse. Friday's disappointing employment report (194,000 new jobs, far short of the 500,000 predicted) will not impact the Fed's plan to taper in November. The Fed never reacts to one report; they like to see three or more in a row. They never do anything quickly, except in a crisis. So the taper will start in November. It's a mistake but that’s the Fed for you. They make one mistake after another. Get ready for a new recession in 2022."

- dailyreckoning.com

Gregory Mannarino, "Shocker! Another Crisis? People, Be Ready For Anything!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 10/11/21:

"Shocker! Another Crisis? People, Be Ready For Anything!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"The Waiting Is The Hardest Part"

"The Waiting Is The Hardest Part"

by Jim Kunstler

"Ol’ Tom Petty sure got that right: the waiting is the hardest part. The lines are drawn: vaxed on one side and unvaxed on the other. Can it be that the unvaxed know rather specifically what the dangers of the vax actually are? That they are making a rational decision, taking a stand, against a toxic hacking of their immune systems and systemic damage to their organs? It’s not that hard to understand, after all. Those spike proteins can kill you, if not right away, then steadily, steadily over the weeks and months. So, now we’re left to wait as the light wanes and we slide into fretful darkness.

And can it be that the vaxed are so clue-deprived that they have not seen the news? Sure, information was suppressed pretty tightly for two years since this madness started, but the news media, turns out, is as leaky as the mRNA vaccines. If you were even moderately aware, you could discover that the vaxes create havoc in your bloodstream. It’s right ‘out there,’ documented and for real. But now, if you vaxed up, and you happened to snag a clue since then, you have a powerful incentive for denying that you might have made a mistake and acquired a serious problem. And you have a support group of about half the nation to reinforce that denial and even demonize those unvaxed who keep hectoring you with conspiracy theories. Hard to fathom how much you hate them for it.

It looks like all of Hollywood’s zombie dreams will be coming true: civil war between the walking dead and the rest of us, who, let’s face it, cannot be faulted for getting the spooky feeling that we are being hunted down now. It’s kind of serious when you are deprived of your income, and also of access to all the common activities of daily life. Yet just this weekend we see what could be the opening skirmish, the Bull Run, of this new civil war: the “sick-out” of Southwest Airlines pilots and other employees whom the company is attempting to coerce into vaxing. These Southwest Airlines rebels threw quite a spanner in the works. Will the country even understand what happened? Will other vax-averse cohorts of sore-beset employees at other companies follow? Wait….

Meanwhile, we have the arrival on-the-scene of another joker: Merck’s new anti-Covid-19 drug molnupiravir, said to reduce the risk of hospitalization and death from Covid by 50 percent. Merck and its partner, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, have applied for an emergency use authorization (EUA) from the FDA for this new drug, the same legal loophole that Pfizer and Moderna got for their mRNA vaxes. “Joe Biden” promised to spend $1.2 billion procuring a big batch of the new drug, so bringing it on must be a done deal.

The catch is, molnupiravir is in the same order of nucleoside analogue drugs as remdesivir, a clinically-proven failure in the treatment of Covid 19. The stuff killed patients left and right. Molnupiravir’s mutagenic mechanism is supposed to mess with the RNA of Covid-19 viruses, incrementally disabling them and killing them off. The trouble is, mutagenic drugs are notorious for broad spectrum action, so molnupiravir might do the same thing to the various cells in your body, too: instant cancer. I guess we’ll have to stand-by and see how that works out. It pays to remember, though, that the EUA didn’t work out so well for the Covid-19 vaccines, did it? The waiting is the hardest part.

Molnupiravir was shoved out onstage after two years of the public health authorities (Drs. Fauci, Collins, et al.) and the corporate news media casting curses on the existing suite of cheap drugs that proved clinically effective in the early treatment of Covid-19, namely ivermectin (a.k.a. “horse paste”), hydroxychloroquine, fluvoxamine, prednisone, etc. If you were paranoid, you might suspect that something was up in this attempt to roadblock cheap, safe, and effective treatments in favor of untested novelties that would just happen to be another multibillion-dollar boon for drug companies.

The thundering question, of course, is: who exactly are the authorities behind all this Covid-19 mischief? I’d suggest if you find out who installed “Joe Biden” in the White House, and who is running him, you’d have a few clues. It kind of looks like they intend to kill a lot of people. Pretty soon we’ll have a fair idea of whether it worked or not as the micro blood clots accumulate in 100-million-odd human lab-rats here in America and many more millions around the world.

They’ve also poured enough sand into the engines of the global economy to put it out of business - and, of course, the US economy leads all that. No heat for you this winter as you sit around waiting to clot up and check out. The unvaxed are watching this go down, goggling in horror at the fantastic credulousness of the doomed Woke, the legions of Zombies who foolishly allied themselves with forces of genuine evil. They’ve been on their knees worshipping Dr. Fauci, the FBI, the CIA, “Joe Biden,” and Rachel Maddow and everybody else brandishing cattle-prods of coercion and propaganda at them. They followed their marching orders obediently, like good little boys and girls, and took their shots. The lines are drawn. Pushing the unvaxed further will avail nothing (except now maybe a mighty push back). Mulder was right: the truth is out there. Wait for it. (Yes, the waiting is the hardest part.)"

- https://kunstler.com/

○

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, "The Waiting"

The Daily "Near You?"

Chelsea, Massachusetts, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"The Cruelest Joke Of All..."

“The smallest decisions made had such profound repercussions. One ten-minute wait could save a life… or end it. One wrong turn down the right street or one seemingly unimportant conversation, and everything was changed. It wasn’t right that each lifetime was defined, ruined, ended, and made by such seemingly innocuous details. A major life-threatening event should come with a flashing warning sign that either said ABANDON ALL HOPE or SAFETY AHEAD. It was the cruelest joke of all that no one could see the most vicious curves until they were over the edge, falling into the abyss below.”

- Sherrilyn Kenyon

"The Champ"

"The Champ"

by CP

"Ding, ding, ding, you hear the bell for the start of the fight, hear the crowd, noisy, excited to see this rematch between you and Life. You're here, and still the Champ, right? Fought this guy so many times before, always beat him, too, though you took many a beating yourself in the process, each fight a little tougher, taking a little more out of you each time. You meet in the center of the ring... damn, has this guy grown somehow? He looks bigger, more muscled, and has a real confident look in his eye. So what? You're the Champ, still standing, right? Let'sget it on!

Ding, ding, ding, you meet him in the center of the ring, toe to toe, jabbing, bobbing and weaving, feeling each other out. He seems faster than you remember, while your own punches are a hair slower, not quite able to connect solidly, while his land solidly, crisply, heavily. He lands a tremendous body shot to your side, knocking the air right out of you, and you clinch him desperately, sucking in as much air as you can while he hammers away at you, your forearms blocking most, but not all, of those heavy, heavy punches.

Ding, ding, ding, the bell ends the round and you sit on your stool, hearing the trainers tell you how to fight this guy, "Don't clinch with him, he's too strong, he'll bust you up!" "Dance, man, side to side, bob and weave, don't give him anything to hit! Jab and dance away, jab, jab, jab..." words you've heard so many times before. You think of previous bouts with this guy, the loss of a job when you had a family to support, the bitter divorce, the deaths of loved ones, and every time he came wanting to knock your head off, but your will power, training and instincts always kept you standing at the end, still the Champ, right? But this time, something's not right, something's different somehow.

Yeah, time's gone by, not so young or strong as you once were, not as fast, don't recover as fast, but haven't been taken out yet, right? And everybody knows the rules, the only way he wins is to knock you out, you just gotta hang on, take his best shots and give him all you got until that bell rings for the end of the fight, and if you're still there, still standing, you win. Still the Champ, right? Round after round after round...

Ding, ding, ding, last round, you're feeling so tired, legs almost gone, no snap to the punches, but he looks fresh, strong, and bores in with a mean intent, landing hammer blows, knocking you back towards the corner where he wants you, you try dancing sideways, he cuts off the ring, no escape that way, and keeps coming in. A thunderous right cross lands smack on your chin, everything turns black for a second, legs about to go as the instincts kick in and you throw your body back out of the way, sucking in as much air as you can, shaking your head to clear the blurriness, but you're in the corner now, where he wants you, and here he comes with a vengeance, fast, strong, wanting the knockout, but you're still standing, still the Champ, right? Right?

Ding, ding, ding..."

"Truth..."

“Truth is always stranger than fiction. We craft fiction to match our sense of how things ought to be, but truth cannot be crafted. Truth is, and truth has a way of astonishing us to our knees, reminding us that the universe does not exist to fulfill our expectations. Because we are imperfect beings who are self-blinded to the truth of the world’s stunning complexity, we shave reality to paper thin theories and ideologies that we can easily grasp – and we call them truths. But the truth of a sea in all its immensity cannot be embodied in one tidewashed pebble.”

- Dean Koontz